“It’s getting worse and worse”: soon the end of cold calling? A senator wants to ban it in France

Calls all day long, to talk about state aid, telephone plans, chimney sweeping that we don't have… Telephone canvassing is experienced by many French people every day.

In a survey published in 2023 by UFC-Que Choisir, 72% of French citizens said they were subjected to canvassing calls every week and 97% claimed to be annoyed by this practice.

“Annoying for everyone”

In this sense, in order to fight against these calls considered harassing, the senator of Aisne, Pierre-Jean Verzelen, proposes to prohibit telephone canvassing. Its text is debated this Thursday, November 14, 2024 in the Senate. The parliamentarian wants to change the rules to end a subject “became so annoying for everyone”he emphasizes in an interview given to West France.

“Make the consumer an actor”

Today, the principle is that every French person agrees to be canvassed. Through his bill, the senator intends to reverse the trend. He wants to have it adopted as a principle that every French person is opposed to it. “Each French person will be able to continue to be canvassed but they will have to take the steps to register with the companies that can call them. This makes the consumer an actor since they decide who has the right to call them or not and that puts an end to the multiple calls”he explains to our colleague from West France.

If the law is passed, the government will also have to take up the subject and attack companies that do not respect the rules, warns the senator.